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UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
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NCAA basketball boycott threatened
NCAA: Scholarship rejection part of cost containment effort
The Associated Press
DES MOINES, Iowa — Plans for a college basketball boycott gathered strength yesterday, with more coaches supporting the unprecedented protest and talks with the National Collegiate Athletic Association broken off.
Rudy Washington, director of the Black Coaches Association and the basketball coach at Drake, would not say when the walkout would take place, but acknowledges it is likely to happen. He said the boycott would include players and could conceivably last the rest of the season.
Some coaches said they hoped to avoid such action but would participate in a show of unity. Others said they would continue to get their teams ready to play.
"There comes a point where you have to take a stand," said Washington State coach Kelvin Sampson, a member of the BCA. "A brush fire here or there isn't going to do anything. We've got to have solidarity on this."
Arkansas coach Nolan Richardson said he thinks a bowcott is inevitable
A vote at the NCAA Association convention against restoring a 14th scholarship in Division I men's basketball triggered the boycott plan.
Washington said efforts to consolidate support for a boycott were going better then he had expected.
The coaches could act as early as Saturday. Stopping games on a weekend also would knock a number of feature cups ups off television, depriving the NCAA of revenue from those telecasts.
Washington discussed the BCA's plan with
the group's executive legislative committee Tuesday night.
"Ipromised the other guys I wouldn't discuss it." Washington said yesterday.
What is known is that the BCA and NCAA are no longer talking. NCAA officials met twice with BCA officials in the last hours of the NCAA convention, which ended Tuesday night in San Antonio, and had planned to meet again today. The BCA called off that meeting.
"We were notified this morning that there was no need to continue a dialogue," said Cedric Dempsey, the NCAA's executive director. "Our communication has stopped."
Dempsey said he had no idea what the BCA planned or when it would act. But the possibility of a boycott has college administrators scurrying to figure what they would do if it actually happened.
All 33 Division I conference commissioners scheduled a conference call for 3 p.m. EST Thursday to discuss strategy. NCAA delegates, who often use the end of convention week for vacation, instead hurried home to deal with the BCA's threat.
Many questions remain unanswered. Would the players join the coaches in a walkout? Are coaches putting their jobs in jeopardy? Would boycoting teams have to forfeit games?
"I don't know what the ramifications are," said Iowa State coach Johnny Orr, former president of the National Association of Basketball Coaches. "Could they fire the coaches or take scholarships away from the players? I really don't know. No matter what, there's going to be some hard feelings, probably some jobs lost."
Brown, the team's leading scorer, said he supports the BCA and would go along with its plans.
Despite the risks, some players likely would join a boycott. New Mexico guard Greg
"We all know what's going on. I think a lot of people would follow what John Thompson or John Chaney would do," Brown said, referring to two BCA leaders and two of the nation's most prominent coaches.
Drake assistant coach Pat Rafferty said he was certain his school's players would honor a boycott. "If coach Washington isn't coaching, then this basketball team won't play," he said.
The NCAA scholarship vote upset the Black coaches, who contend minority athletes are most hurt by bickbacks. A reduction of one scholarship means 300 fewer opportunities at a college education, they say, adding about two-thirds of that total likely would be black
"We're looking for opportunities for our kids," Arkansas coach Nolan Richardson said. "Is that so terrible? Don't close no doors on me; open the door. You don't have to give me nothing. Just give me an opportunity."
Tulsa coach Tubby Smith said that while he's disappointed that the additional scholarship was rejected, he's not sure a boycott is the answer.
"Ihoping we can work within the confines of the NCAA," said Smith, who is Black. "I would like to see something done later."
Even if the coaches walk, there's no guarantee the NCAA will be moved to act. The NCAA Presidents Commission has insisted it is committed to containing costs, and this year's rejection of the 14th scholarship was the second straight time that proposal has been turned down.
Greg O'Brien, chairman of the Presidents Commission, said universities face tight budgets in all areas, not just athletics.
"For the first time in the lives of anybody at the convention, there's less money in higher education than there was the year before," said O'Brien, president of the University of New Orleans. "Things are tough on virtually every campus in America."
KU coach: Cutting scholarship may deprive players of education
By Matt Slegel
Kansan sportswriter
The NCAA may have gotten more than it bargained for when it denied schools the right to add a 14th scholarship to men's basketball programs.
Now the Black Coaches Association has threatened to instigate a national boycott. While the NCAA said it had concerns about the cost of an additional scholarship, a Kansas coach felt the decision not to add the scholarship will deny some students the right to an
"You have to admire people who are willing to stand up for what they believe in," said Marian Washington, Kansas women's basketball coach and president of the Black Coaches Association. "I support the restatement of a scholarship for the men's program."
Marlan Washington
stems from the NCAA's refusal to grant anon-
scholarship because of financial reasons.
Washington said she did not know what effect a boycott would have.
"I think the best thing we can do is constantly verbalize our support," Washington said. "I'm not sure that a demonstration on the women's side is going to have too much impact, since women's sports, although getting better, don't get that much norotility."
Speculation remains about when the boycott would occur. Washington said she had
not spoken out officially on the boycott because the official spokesman for the coaches association is Rudy Washington, the association's executive director.
Marian Washington said that she did not understand why the NCAA voted against adding another scholarship.
"I find it very difficult to believe that they couldn't pick up another scholarship," she said. "I want our kids to have as many educational opportunities as possible. It seems like we are restricting or taking away opportunities from our youth. If students don't have the opportunity to go to college, then more kids will wind up on the streets and turn to a life of crime."
Fifteen scholarships used to be available to the NCAA men's basketball program. Two years ago, a commission of college presidents cut the number of permitted scholarships to 13.
The NCAA decision Monday to keep the number at 13 was unpopular among other basketball coaches.
"I was shocked at the insensitivity shown by the vote of the NCAA in regards to the rejection of adding a 14th scholarship," said Arizona coach Lute Olsen, who is white, in a written statement.
Olsen said that the decision leaves the Black Coaches Association with no other choice but to boycott. He also said men's basketball funds 75 percent of the NCAA annual revenue and, along with football, provides financial support for both men's and women's college sports.
Walters' inevitable NBA fame waiting on Coach Daly's bench
"To me it was a vote that was indicative of the refusal on the part of the presidents to listen before making a decision," Olsen said.
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Andy Warhol once said that everyone will be famous for 15 minutes. But Rex Walters, a rookie shooting guard with the New Jersey Nets, can't even get 15 minutes of playing time.
After playing nearly 30 minutes a game last season while leading the Jayhawks to the NCAA Final Four, Walters serves as the Nets No. 1 benchwarmer. In the 14 games he has played, he has averaged six minutes and 1.7 points.
Before a Jan. 2 game at Boston Garden against the Celtics, Walters went one-on-one against teammate Kenny Anderson, worked on his jump shot and posed for a picture with several autograph seekers. Later that night, he watched the entire game from the bench, leaving his seat only to stand near the team's huddle during time outs.
"It's definitely been very difficult and frustrating for me," Walters said Tuesday night in a telephone interview. "In many ways, it's been like my freshman year at Northwestern."
Walters spent two years at Northwestern. He averaged only six minutes and 2.1 points a game his freshman season — statistics almost identical to this season's NBA output. However, he blossomed as a sophomore, averaging 17.6 points a game before transferring to Kansas.
Tuesday night in East Rutherford, N.J., the Washington Bullets routed the Nets 115-100. Walters scored four points while shooting one for one from the field and two for two from the free-throw line.
"I got to play, but it was a blowout," Walters said.
His frustrations are understandable. He proved his abilities last season, especially when it was needed most. In the NCAA Tournament his scoring output surged; although he averaged 15.3 points a game the entire season, he averaged 21.2 points a game during the tournament. He also tied a tournament record against Brigham Young by making six three-pointers without a miss. He finished that game with 28 points, his college career-high.
The New Jersey Nets must have seen some talent in Walters, or they wouldn't have selected him in the first round as the 16th pick of last year's draft. Nor would they have signed him to a six-year, $6.8 million contract.
The long-term deal means that Walters is far from pushing the panic buttons on his NBA future. But the guaranteed money and a spot on the team should not keep Walters content for long.
"It's not about the money," Walters said. "I play the game because I love it. The way I see it, they shouldn't be paying me all of my money if they're not going to play me."
During shoot-a-rounds Tuesday night, Walters spoke casually with a referee who said that Nets coach Chuck Daly is notorious for ignoring rookies. If Walters has learned anything this season, it is that NBA rookies have to earn respect from teammates, coaches
and referees.
"I probably haven't spoken more than two sentences at one time to Coach Daly," said Walters, who would choose be body-slammed by Dennis Rodman over kissing up to his coach. "That's just his way. I've always felt that I can prove my abilities through playing and not talking about them.
"The level of competition here is unbelievable. It's a much more physically demanding game. As a rookie, you don't get any foul calls whatsoever. Ninety percent of the calls I got last year that were legitimate calls, I wouldn't get this year in the NBA. You have absolutely no respect whatsoever."
Daly said that Walters needed to improve his skills before he could get more playing time.
"First of all, he's a terrific person and has a tremendous work ethic," Daly said. "He's playing the game for all of the right reasons. Right now he's learning the program, and he's going to have to develop some NBA-type skills, whether it be shooting or on defense. Right now he's struggling in those areas, but that's typical for a lot of rookies. The key for him will be what he does between the end of this season and the beginning of next season."
In other words, Daly doesn't believe in playing rookies. And since the Nets are struggling with a 13-19 record, it would be difficult for Daly to disrupt his playing rotation anyway. Veteran player Kevin Edwards starts at shooting guard, and another veteran, Johnny Newman, comes off the bench. So, until Walters gets a year older and wiser, he will have to keep working on his game. If his professional playing career continues to parallel his college career, Walters will soon see his 15 minutes of playing time — and fame.
Doug Hesse / KANSAN
Former Kansas guard Rex Walters hopes to drive past opponents in the NBA as he did in college
With one month to go, Norway gears up for Olympics
$1 billion spent in preparation for Winter Games
LILLEHAMMER, Norway — There's plenty of snow, the venues are ready and the buzz of excitement is everywhere.
The Associated Press
With one month to go before the start of the Winter Olympics, Lillehammer is set for the Games to begin.
On Feb. 12, a Norwegian ski jumper with the Olympic torch in his hand will soar off the jump in the hills above town to mark the opening of the biggest Winter Games ever.
Lilahammer organizers are working feverishly to make sure every
"We're all doing 100 miles per hour," said Lillehammer Olympic Organizing Committee representative Rolf Nereng. "It's all arms and legs around here."
thing is in place.
Actually, Lillehammer has been ready for months for the Winter Olympics in a region Norwegians call the cradle of skiing. The country has spent $1 billion on the Winter Games, not counting roads and other projects.
Norway has celebrated every step of preparations for the Games, which are a national obsession in this country of 4.3 million people.
But Nereng said the final countdown would begin without much ceremony.
"We don't have time." he said.
The venues are completed and tested, and the International Olympic Committee proclaimed Lilleham
mer "the best-prepared Olympics Games organizer of recent times."
Whining cars, with frosty windows, seemed outraged at having to start on cold mornings. Bulldozers growled as they removed excess snow from Lillehammer's streets.
A thousand details and few fears still remain.
At least one worry, perhaps the biggest after a series of warm and dry winters, appears to have been eliminated.
The days have been crisp and, best of all, snowy.
On Storgata, Lillehammer's long walking street, a bundled-up woman glided her stand-up sled — called a "spark" — past the stuffed reindeer outside a shop.
Two teen-age boys — with one shorty ski each — slid along the snow that blankets the cobblestones and the manhole covers, which bear
the Olympic rings.
Even the nights seem brighter than usual, despite the gloom of subarctic winter. A few straggling Christmas lights on the pine trees and hanging between buildings help brighten the snow. Spotlights illuminate the parallel ski jumps above town, which will be the site of the opening ceremony.
The Norwegians have done everything they can to get ready for the Games, which will feature about 2,000 athletes from 80 countries.
"Even though we are prepared for most things, we have also discovered that everyone has very high expectations of us," said Petter Ronningen, deputy managing director of the organizing committee, known as LOOC. "This, of course, gives us butterflies in our stomachs."
Norwegians built a huge skating hall, which looks like a giant Viking ship overturned on the shores of
Mjosa, Norway's largest lake and now the domain of skaters and ice fishermen.
But there are some things — other than the weather — that worry the orderly, efficient Norwegians.
They hollowed out a mountain in the town of Gjovik, south of Lillehammer, so they could build a hockey ring inside. They built a bobsled track that — in keeping with the environmental profile of the Games — can barely be seen in the forest north of town.
Despite a beefed-up rail and road network, the transportation system will be straining to bring up to 100,000 people a day into the isolated and compact Olympic region centered on Lillehammer, 110 miles north of Oslo.
The same snow that makes Lillehammer a dream for winter sports can turn the roads into a nightmare of ice and drifts.
The computer system used for results and information may be vulnerable. Newspapers said so-called computer hackers are suspected of having broken into the system, although Nereng of the organizing committee said he assumed the system was secure.
Norway fears protests against its commercial whale hunts and terrorism by those angered by a Norwegian-brokered peace accord between Israel and the Palestinians.
And easy-going Norwegians have realized that, because of random attack on athletes such as U.S. figure skater Nancy Kerrigan, they have to beef up security.
"Even with all the world's resources and planning, something could still go wrong," said Ronningen. "We have developed a contingency plan that will allow LOOC to deal with most of the potential problems."